WW - Raging Waters in Pepperell, MA

A week ago, I took a series of photos of an old abandoned paper mill in Pepperell, Massachusetts for a photo study.  The mill closed in 2002.



Little did I know that a week later after several days of endless rain, the Nashua River which runs past the mill would reach record high levels.



I would say that the river is a good ten feet higher on the side of that building!

Around the building, there is a ledge which leads to a red door.



Today, the ledge was under water, the river blew out the door and flooded the building.



Down the river, there is an hydro electric plant which used to power the mill and now provides renewable energy.



There was plenty of electricity to be made today!



The river flowing past the dam under the Main Street bridge was already relatively high last week, as often it just dribbles over during dry periods.



The river was raging today!  Around the other side of the red building, it was flowing into the street.



The force of the water was incredible.  There were tons of people watching in awe (including this engineer who was late coming back from lunch).

Some photography notes:  I was lucky to get several shots at the same angle, but next time I will bring my iPhone so I can see the previous shots and set up the comparison shots exactly the same. Hopefully the previous shots would be available either online on Flickr or sync'ed to the phone.  As is, I had to use two cameras because the SLR could not take the shots of the mill through the chain link fence.  And the point and shoot was instrumental in capturing these amazing videos:





Visit by Wordless Wednesday or 5 Minutes for Mom or 7 Clown Circus (wordful) for more participants.